Friday, October 5, 2012

New Expansion Gripes

No, this is not me getting all grumpy with the expansion, this is about the standard gripes that come with a new expansion and usually they have more to do with the players, not the game. So lets get our grump on and start complaining.

Mounts:
This is a two part gripe. Part 1, why does everyone feel the need to stand on top of quest givers with their mount? Are they aware you can actually talk to the quest giver from a fair distance away so you do not obstruct others from talking to them as well?

I know many times I have run up to a quest giver and was on top of them and side stepped or back stepped a little so I was not covering them. It is common courtesy. Just because you are playing a video game does not mean you need to be a jerk about it. It is not hard, one step in any direction and the next person can click the quest giver no problem.

Part 2, why does everyone feel the need to get on the biggest mount they own all the time? Perhaps it is just a matter of preference but I prefer smaller mounts, the smaller the better. While I do understand it could very well be a preference thing I always have the feeling that people like being on the biggest mounts they own because they know you can obstruct more people trying to do things, see things, or interact with things.

New expansions bring a lot of people out into the world and that means a lot more people on huge mounts and standing on quest givers with them. I hate them all, every single jerk in the game that thinks it is okay to stand on a quest giver with a mount so big it looks like it could eat them for lunch and still want more afterwards.

Nodes:
The initial day is always awesome when you are ahead of the pack like I was. The world was mine and I got spoiled by it. Thousands of herbs all to myself and I picked every damn one of them. It is the only reason I keep herbalism on my main even if I want to switch it to engineering. Just because I like to have something else to do while leveling or just going around doing my thing. My hunters are always one gathering and one crafting profession with the exception of one that is a double gatherer and one that is a double crafter.

Before I start to complain I need to ask if I am the only person that does this. If I am flying around and land for a node and see someone fighting over it I wait until they are done fighting, if they do not pick/mine it, then I go for it. Otherwise I believe if someone is fighting on or really close to a node, they are fighting for that node. Common courtesy as I said, I believe that is it. Am I the only person that does that? Sure seems so.

I've seen it happen a million times, more so when the expansion is new, I go to grab something, get attacked and someone comes and picks the herb from under my feet. Not exaggerating. I am actually standing on it and they pick it. Good thing for me that 90% of the time I still get it. If I see them coming I just stop fighting and pick it, being a hunter I have that option being I have a pet, for most they do not have that option, they lost the node.

Monkey See Monkey Do:
I can understand where it comes from and I do it myself. When someone got the archeology polearm and I saw it I said I had to get that for my druid to level with and kept digging until I got it. Lucky that I got it sooner than later, on my 6th solve.

The thing is, sometimes it goes to far. Like the disc mount. There were like 3 people, myself being one, on my server with it one day, people started asking where they get it and then 24 hours later there are 100s of people floating around on it.

I can see wanting something new, I can see wanting to show you have it, I can see the desire to collect things, but people, draw the line. When there are a few people on a mount it is unique, when 35 of the 40 people in the sha raid are riding them it loses its uniqueness.

At least there is one good thing about this one example. It is a small mount. Have to love that part of it.

It is the whole "how did you do that", "where did you get that", "help me do that too" that starts to get annoying. The expansion just started, you do not need to drop everything to play monkey see monkey do. Look it up, figure out how to do it on your own and you will have roughly 2 years to get it done. Why are you rushing to mimic something that is not even unique anymore?

My biggest gripe is the lack of common courtesy with the people that are all money see monkey do. I've been questioned, harped on, pestered, and bugged for hours already asking me this question that question and the other question from people I do not even know. Look it up people.

I am trying to play the game too just like you and I looked it up and I am no one special so if I can do it you can do it. I do not mind helping you, I will answer any question you might have even if I do not know you, but at some point you have to look things up for yourself. I do not have (GM) next to my name, which means my time is my time and I do not work for you as your personal information dispenser because you saw me on a mount and want to mimic me by getting it.

Dungeon Heroes:
I'll be the first to say I have not seen any of these yet. Yet being the operative word there. I've heard stories from some of my friends that play that make me wonder what is wrong with people.

A tank friend, day 1, enters a heroic. The game just came out remember. He gets in and tells people this is his first run, he just hit 90 and doesn't know the lay out yet. So instead of working with him or understanding, they kick him, no words said. He didn't even get to do one pull. They did not judge him on his skill, the just kicked because he said he was a fresh 90 that had never done it. Being a fresh 90 that has never done it on day one should be considered normal not kickable. Heck, even a year from now if someone says they just hit 90 and it is their first time that is no reason to kick them.

Someone in my guild saw one of the groups he was in go through 5 damage dealers when he was healing. They kept kicking people for doing under 30K. Is 30K the new bare minimum in these? I don't even know. If so, I should have been kicked more than a few times myself. More so on my first runs when I was learning the fights, heck, I am still trying to get into the grove and do under 30K half the fights. I am doing less at 90 than I did at 85, but I know gear will solve that. Does it mean I should be kicked? No.

Like I said, I have not had any problems in the runs I have been in. But hearing the others tell them I remember them from the beginning of cataclysm when I did see them, I hate those people.

I would chalk this up to another common courtesy thing. Unless there is a real reason to kick someone, like a resto druid trying to heal in feral gear or a damage dealer doing 8K DPS and you actually need that extra damage because the group as a whole is not great, have some common courtesy and let it go. It is the beginning of the expansion and a lot of people are new to the dungeons and quite lost and totally under geared. Even having done them all there are still none I feel comfortable in yet.

Seriously, what is expected in a dungeon now? Is it really 30K, if so I have never had a good group yet. I am always #1 or #2 and usually when I am #2 the tank is #1 and I only break 30K half the time and on trash packs. I can't believe people are getting kicked for doing less than that. I would have had to kick every single person except one that was in any group as a damage dealer so far this expansion if I went by that rule.

Questing:
I love to quest, don't get me wrong, I just hate the people that quest in the area I am in. There is no common courtesy in the game at all. Need to get some amber, go up to a tree and click on it and start attacking the bugs just to see someone swoop down and steal it? Happens all the time, to everyone.

Same as I said with nodes, if someone is fighting on it, let them have it. What is so freaking hard about that? Yes, the spawn rate is annoyingly slow. You could spend more time trying to find those few ambers than doing all the other quest combined. Let the person fighting for it have it.

It is another case of I think I am the only person that when I see something, if I see someone fighting near it, I move on to something else. It seems everyone would rather steal the quest item from another person than clear a path themselves.

I did have some fun with it yesterday however. A paladin was flying over me and twice when I clicked the amber and MDed the bugs to my pet he was swooping down to grab it and twice I took it before he did. I said, in say, go find your own. He said, why work when I can get you to do the work for me. I said, I'm a hunter, it won't work, find another target if you want to be a jerk about it. I should have reported him. Not sure if it was an offense that is actionable, but it should be. Swooping down and stealing quest items from someone that just cleared them out is bad style, bad manners and shows a complete lack of common courtesy. If every person like that would quit the game tomorrow the game would be a better place.

Common Courtesy:
That is what it all boils down to in every example and that is my biggest gripe with the new expansion so far. Even bigger than the RNG hating me, sooner or later I will get my gear. My biggest gripe has nothing to do with the game but the people that play it. The complete and total lack of common courtesy by the majority of players is astounding.

I might not be an angel by any definition of the word, but I would like to believe that I attempt to play the game the way I want others around me to play it. I will not take a node or quest item from someone because I would not want them to take it from me. I will not kick someone just because they are lower than expected unless we actually needed someone better because I would not want to be kicked for the same reason unless I actually deserved it. I would not harp on people asking them to hold my hand on doing little things to get cosmetic items that I could just as easily look up myself and do it later.

Oddly enough, my biggest gripes so far with mists have nothing to do with mists at all. The game is good, the players suck.

28 comments:

I know you aren't a PVP'er, and that's probably for the good, because the biggest gripes in this expansion are with PVP.

In short, despite talking big talk on PVP in MOP, Blizzard have f*ked up PVP with this expansion MORE than usual. I am not even talking about balance issues, we've come to expect them (resurrects in arenas? check. a certain class hitting for your entire hp pool with a lucky not-so-rare crit? check. etc). They did the worst thing they could have done: they DID NOT RESET MMR. For all intents and purposes, the season we are entering has already started more than 6 months ago, so the rating depression issues caused by MMR camping at the top are already in full swing, right from the start. And to add insult to the injury, Blizzard said that the decision to not reset MMR was a last-minute one, and they don't explain the reasoning behind it (hint: they might simply not have it, the "decision" to not reset MMR might not exist, they might just have forgotten to reset it in time).

Now, why am I writing all this? Because this is a perfect illustration of the point that not all of the gripes "have more to do with the players, not the game". Sometimes it really is Blizzard that screws people over.

As a non PvPer these problems are outside of my view. I have not done arena, at least seriously, since wrath and in cataclysm I only did a few battle grounds here and there. So I can not pass judgement from that end, I'll leave that to you and people that play PvP.

I must say, from the outside looking in, it seems like the world is all roses in the PvP world because you can kill all those people in the world that annoy you, at least the ones from the other faction.

While it is true I know all those things you mentioned because I read a lot and I can feel your pain, I do not do that content so it does not effect me. The annoyances I mentioned are things that effect me directly. I would have been wrong to even mention what you did as I have not felt it impact me.

You just added something to my list for me as you are a much better judge of the content than I could ever be.

Funny that you should this post after my first brushes with early expansion uncourteous behaviour last night.

Skinners who steal your leather before you get round to harvesting. Miners who sweep down on their flying mounts in a starter zone and start mining when you are already there with pickaxe in hand. I guess 10 days into an expansion and this is my first brush with this all too common behaviour is not bad. It is always worst at the start of an expansion, but when there are so many mining nodes and herbs, why bother anybody else?

Kill 20 mobs and make a nice pile, loot, start to skin, someone else comes in and start skinning off your pile. Hey man, I made that pile for me. Guess you have to slow kill and skin in packed areas now thanks to AoE looting making everything available for someone else to skin.

It is always the worst now, when everyone is leveling professions and trying to make a killing on the market. It will get better in time. It is just annoying as hell now.

I am a skinner but I have a rule: I stand by the bodies and wait! If The killer sees me and isnt fighting but walks away then i consider it ok to skin. Same thing with nodes. I wait patiently by the node - if they walk away then I mine. They need a damn auto-dismount debuff around npcs! In real life we would kick those peoples asses for doing that at a bank.

That is what I do when I skin. If the person leave the pile, the pile is mine. But I would never start skinning from someones pile while they are on, or near, it.

An auto dismount, wow, that is a great idea. Can't believe no one has ever mentioned that one before. Kind of how some mounts can not go in water and as soon as you do they dismount you, have something, small like 3 yards, around all quest givers that automatically dismount. Amazing idea.

Meanwhile, in Silithus, people are gently waiting for other people to finish off their 12 Geolord kills, if not just going to one of the other camps (though CRZ made it excessively crowded in the weekend).

While I won't say bad behaviour is limited to them or that all the 'let endgamers make alts!'-moves have been a blessing to earlier parts of the game as they bring back people into parts of the game they have no real interest in, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that if you want a higher chance of more civil behaviour, not running after a single wipe etc. you're better off not concentrating on the latest endgame/Expansion.

Too bad not all designers understand the core concept of subscription based games (hint: a yearlong sub >> a box sale)

They did do a fair job making things a little better this expansion like having the end of quest bosses being shared kills they left some gathering and killing quests to be hell. The CRZ makes it even worse.

I play on a small server and I can spend 45 minutes on one quest trying to get enough of something. I would hate to be on a big server or a CRZ area and doing it.

They need to realize that taking 45 minutes to gather 6 things is not fun. Killing 80 beasts to get 4 items is not fun.

Leave the grinding to the grinds, making things hard to find and low drops rates is what makes the players basically grief each other in these situations. They create an atmosphere that make the people act like jerks. I've felt it before myself, after looking for something for such a long time. Almost made me want to steal it from someone else just to get the damn quest done. I didn't but I wanted to.

I was griping about this the other day. I said maybe I'm too nice because I do wait and see if that node, that herb, that pile of corpses, that quest item is wanted by the person next to it.

The most annoying thing has been mob tagging though. I was trying to do the daily for Golden Lotus where you kill the 12 Mogu or whatever it is. I'm melee, I have a couple of ranged abilities but they aren't as ranged as a ranged. So I'm running to a mob and before I can hit it a ranged does. That is acceptable, it happens. However, the gap between them hitting it and me hitting it was very small so I hit it as well, and then I got aggro. Then they didn't attack it again so I kept aggro and had to kill it, giving them the credit, and me the repair bill. Once is an accident, twice is a mistake. This happened over and over again. I could fly obviously so I tried dropping down on mobs, now their internet connection was obviously better than mine as they got it tapped before I did. I didn't keep count how much this happened but it was a lot.

There's also a problem with mob aggro, where if you dump aggro, or run past someone with more aggro generation than you, then the mobs don't reset, which I swear they always used to before if you were soloing, in a party obviously not but if you were on your own. So I've had people run up to me, I don't touch the mobs chasing them but they vanish, or whatever, and then the mobs are attacking me. Either they've tagged them and they get credit, or there's way too many and it just kills me, but by giving them another target they've avoided that corpse run themselves.

Having said that not everyone is bad. I was doing a daily for the Cloud Serpent people where I had to kill this hozen in a cave. This was a brutal quest as you pulled the elite Lord guy he pulled all the trash around. If you pulled the trash before the Lord guy it pulled him anyway. I had to swap to tank spec in order to live through this and then the Lord guy must have bugged out on me. He was instant healing everytime I got him to 85% back to 100%, no castbar, just boom full health.

So I had to let him kill me and soon after I'd resurrected this undead warrior shows up and just blitzes down this guy. I jump in hoping it's a shared credit, it wasn't, but I keep on hitting him and the adds to help. I sit down to eat and the Lord Koo-bah mob spawns on top of me. Now usually with that quest the respawn is 90 seconds but fair enough my fault. I start fighting him and then behind me the undead warrior returns, and basically does all the heavy lifting in killing him.

I was ever so grateful to this horde and tried to thank him through emotes. I then followed him on the way out of the cave and he was pulling all the mobs. So I thought to pay him back for helping me I'd help him escape by taking the aggro for him. Only right when I jumped in to do that he turned to aoe them down, which would be the other half of the quest to kill 12 hozen. I'd more than killed enough on my in so I'd not even thought about it and then I'd tapped all his mobs. I felt very guilty and tried to apologise through emotes. I did mean well and it's one of the times I've wished we could communicate cross faction as I wanted to explain.

So most people are annoying, but some random strangers can be nice too.

I've seen, and been victim of the mob dumping thing. Had a paladin with a dozen hozen hot on his trail see me and ran straight through me giving me 12 new mobs to fight. Thank god I am a hunter. MD to my pet, call stampede, dire beast, and burn everything I could find and I survived but any other class in the game that would have been instant death.

People do it on purpose. I saw someone talking in trade talking about seeing how many mobs he can chain on to someone and shadowmeld to put all aggro on them. He was bragging about having killed over 20 players already that day. So yes, it is new, it never happened like this before. Unless you did something to them they would not aggro on you, now they do. Not sure if that is intended.

I am having the same tagging problem as you as ranged. I see a mob, move into range, cast arcane to tag it as it is a quick, cheap and instant shot that I can do while moving. Someone else tags it while my shot is in mid air and because I MDed it to my pet now I am stuck dealing with it for someone else.

What is worse than that is the tagging of mobs you are already fighting. I had one mob down 20% already, someone came by, hit it once, the mob was now theirs. WTF? It has happened at least 20 times to me, probably more. I think there are some tagging and aggro issues for sure.

Reading your second post, those are the hozen the paladin dumped on me. lol That area is insane and over packed.

I helped a tauren DK yesterday like that. Saw him fighting a rare and putting up a good fight but he had 6 adds on him and I knew it would not be long before they would overwhelm him so instead of doing what most would do and waiting for him to die so I could get the rare kill I landed, sent my pet in and blew all cooldowns burning the rare and all adds 20 seconds after landing. I waved to him and he thanked me and I got up and flew away.

Yes, decent people are around. I've helped and I have been helped. But the majority sure seem to be the bad ones.

I am the Anonymous who is always talking about PVP, the first comment up there is mine. It occurred to me that I never said that I love your blog a lot. You are always interesting and informative, a true pleasure to read. Keep it on! I mean it.

Your last part is spot on and exactly how I feel. When I'm out questing I want to be alone and isolated. It's supposed to be an epic world waiting for you the hero to be explored etc right?

But I have to be honest, I've met some decent people lately. More than I did in Cataclysm, both Horde and Alliance. Fellow Hordies handing out buffs (MotW, Stamina...) out of courtesy. Alliance Hunter and Paladin helping me out when I, again, take on too many mobs at the same time (yeah I'm a Fury Warrior with a problem :p)

I've had herbs stolen right underneath me several times, but atm, there's so much nodes out there, it doesn't really matter.

Dungeons on the other hand, oh man, the stories I can tell you as a tank, ... hm, maybe I should start putting those on my blog.

I started over with a monk at level 1 this expansion. The rude behavior is not confined to the high level Pandaria zones. Of course, I have had to deal with the added numbers of CRZ, so in many ways I suspect my involvement with rude folks has even been greater than those who went straight into Pandaria.

On the other hand, I will give three non-home server folks credit for being helpful and nice...three out of 62 levels worth of interactions. I really wish Blizzard would reconsider the CRZ idea. So far the minimal good I have seen from it is far and away out-weighed by the negatives.

On a positive note though, this expansion has added a class with which I have fallen in love. The Windwalker, which from the official forums seems to be the less popular specialization, is a wonderful class choice for me. I have interesting animations, nice melee moves, a system of energy and chi combinations that makes sense to me, and a wide variety of useful support moves and buffs (temporary and long term).

Sometimes the lag caused by CRZ makes it impossible to see other players trying to farm a node, so in such cases I may once in a while appear to be trying to take a node from another player, but if I have any hint at all that a player is there, I wait to see if they are fighting to get to the node. If they aren't, then I will try to get it and if they are, then I move on with nary a word of protest.

Oh, and regarding those folks on huge mounts blocking things...I will be so glad when my monk gets to Northrend and starts collecting babyspice. It always seems to do wonders for "deflating" such oversized egos.

I hate the CRZ, it takes away from the concept of the game. You are supposed to be the hero. You feel less like the hero when 12 other people are being the hero at the same time. Leveling should be a solo event, or at the least limited to the number of people there. They designed it to be solo, let us play it solo.

The CRZ lag is another of my problems with it. I have massive problems whenever in a CRZ zone and I hate it.

You will need a lot of baby spice. I wish they would sell it. Even one gold per will be worth it.

I am making my monk a tank/healer like I usually do with all classes that can be tanks and healers. I hate melee with a passion.

You mean there is an actual use for baby spice? LOL, I feel so terrible. I have always dumped it, not realizing it can be thrown on non-party members. From now on, I will collect and toss it on those giant elefants mailbox blockers. Thanks guys!

LOL, yea, I will need lots of babyspice, but everytime I use it, I can almost feel the idiot on the receiving end being embarrassed and I do love seeing 'em slink off in shame.

I bought the second spec, but I have never decided on brewmaster or mistweaver. Likely enough I won't decide on either one before I hit 90, and the decision then may well be neither. I like the melee style of the windwalker a LOT. Now the question will be can I do enough DPS with it at level cap to justify a raid spot may be one I find answered to my non-satisfaction, but until I prove to myself I can't hold my own with it, that is the route I intend to go.

Guess it comes down to being sick of healing (all punning intended). I may not be the best healer ever, but I know I am good at it. Fortunately the guild has a number of other healers who are as good as me or better, and they do enjoy healing, so let them have the healer's spots.

My aim this expansion is a melee spot, earned on merit. If I can't cut it, then I will know and back off to let someone else take it, but for now, I think I can earn it.

I believe the two handed weapon spec is simming for the better DPS version at the moment compared to two one handers but I think two one handers would be better for the monk style. A two hander does not feel very monkish if you ask me.

We are still short healers. I am going to have to level one of mine soon or it might hinder raiding a lot. I am almost done with one of my tanks which I will make a healing offspec.

After healing a few dungeons it seems healing on the move is going to be a HUGE advantage this expansion which means druid all the way.

I am not surprised at rude behavior in WoW any longer. Go to the mall, the grocery store, walk down the sidewalk of a busy street, join your friends at a local tavern for a beer. Almost everyone, everywhere, is prick with poor hygeine and bad manners. Online it's just worse. I'm no advocate of child abuse, but my parents raised me with discipline and taught me to show courtesy and respect to others, always. Thank goodness I'm in a great guild, otherwise this game would be unplayable.